Thursday, 5 September 2013

September is the month of Wiki Loves Monuments, an annual photography competition organised by the Wikimedia community, and this year is the first that Wikimedia UK has participated. The scope of this year's competition, with respect to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is restricted to Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings, and disappointingly the photos I took on Monday and Tuesday of Wilder's Folly and St Nicholas' Church in Sulham do not count as they are merely Grade II buildings (even though to my mind a Grade II folly seems so much more photogenic than a Grade II* farmhouse). Although I don't have any pretensions of being a contending photographer, it would be good to support the competition and help improve Wikimedia Commons, so today at lunchtime I go (by car I am ashamed to admit) to Tidmarsh, the adjacent parish to Sulham (with which it has shared a single priest since 1943).

At first look, the little parish church of St Laurence, with its stubby wooden bell tower, does not have the appearance of a Norman church, and I wonder if this really is the Grade I listed building that I am looking for.

However, when I go round to the east end of the church I am greeted by a polygonal apse that English Heritage tells me is a very rare 13th-century example, dating to circa 1220 when the east end of the church was rebuilt.

Having completed my tour of the church's exterior, I open the gate of the south porch and find myself facing a wonderful, elaborately-carved stone doorway that dates to the late 12th century. At the apex of the doorway is a bearded head, probably representing Jesus, but it does not fit in with the surrounding stones and is thought to be a 13th-century addition.

On each reveal of the eastmost lancet windows of the nave are the remains of faded medieval frescos depicting saints or apostles, the one bearing a book and a knife thought to be St Bartholemew. These and many other fragmentary wall paintings, probably dating to the middle of the 13th century, were uncovered when the church was restored in 1834, but most were in poor condition and so were plastered over again, and only these two pairs of figures remain uncovered. They have been recently restored to remove earlier waxing and outlining.

I am running out of time, and the only other pictures I take are of a wooden plaque on the north wall commemorating a charitable bequest, reminiscent of the plaques on nearby St Mark's Englefield, and a quick snap of one of the beautiful floor tiles that cover the nave. In the evening, when I am browsing through the church guide booklet I find that there are a couple of late 15th and early 16th century brasses in the church which I overlooked, so I will have to come back another day to see them.

Monday, 9 September 2013

A few days later I did come back and take many more pictures of the interior of St Laurence's Church. All the pictures I took documenting St Laurence's Church are available on Wikimedia Commons, so I have only added below pictures of the replica medieval tiles that floor the entire nave and the 16th century monumental brasses mentioned above. Not having my brass-rubbing kit to hand, and the church being too dim for natural light photography, I had to use the flash with the expected unfortunate glare on both the brasses and the tiles. Despite this, I am quite pleased with the results.

The inscription beneath the knight and the top of his head were lost centuries ago,so the exact identity of the knight is unknown, but 19th century prints of the brassshow him surrounded by four shields, of which only two now remain.The six fleurs de lis on his Tabard, and quartered on the shields, are the coat of armsof the Lenham family, lords of the manor of Tidmarsh until 1522 when Margaret Warren(daughter of Henry Lenham, granddaughter of Robert and Margaret Lenham)sold the manor to Thomas Englefield.

This brass for Elizabeth Dale (died 21 October 1533)and William Dale (his will dated 20 November 1536 is held at the National Archive)is now missing the figures of the marrried couple above the inscription,and the figures of their kneeling children below the inscription.

Tuesday, 3 September 2013

Today I walk a mile further north of Wilder's Folly to the village of Sulham, where Henry Wilder was rector of the parish church of St Nicholas. The original Norman church (itself probably replacing an earlier Anglo-Saxon church) that Henry would have known was demolished in 1832 and replaced by the present church, designed by Henry's son John Wilder, and consecrated in 1838.

Henry was a descendant of Nicholas Wylder, to whom Henry VII had granted land and arms after the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. In 1497 the Wilder family acquired Nunhide Manor, and in 1712 Henry's grandfather, Henry Wilder, acquired the manor of Sulham and the advowson of the living for the parish of Sulham. In 1785 Henry (the younger) became rector of Sulham, the first of five Wilders who held the benefice almost continuously from then up until 1943.

Inside the church, on the wall by the north door, are a collection of memorials to various members of the Wilder family, including one that tells us that Henry lived to the age of 69 and Joan to the age of 89.

Memorial to Henry Wilder (1744–1814) and Family in St Nicholas' Church

Before I make the half hour walk back to work, I have just enough time to peek in at Henry Wilder's home, Sulham House, last seen between the arches of Wilder's Folly. Actually this was only one of his two homes, as the Wilders were also lords of the Manor of Purley, and owned Purley Hall, just to the north of Sulham.

Monday, 2 September 2013

Summer continues into September, and I walk north at lunchtime. Within yards the similitude of a quaint English village breaks apart to reveal a sprawling estate of terraced houses patrolled by men with no hair and fierce dogs. I know this part of the route well by now, and ignoring the meandering avenues and crescents that beckon me with their flowery names I follow a path northwards through the houses and across a sterile grass square where a battered notice warns sternly against the sins of ball games. Squeezing through a narrow alley strewn with beer cans and cigarette packs, the estate vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and I find myself walking up a path between a school playing field on my left and a golf course on my right. In ten minutes I have reached the end of the golf course and turn right down a country lane into the village, actually hardly even a hamlet, of North Street, which has little to commend it beyond a post box in a wall, a defunct red telephone box that has been adopted by the local community, and a wooden bench on a corner of grass.

I have not gone further than here before, and I am not too sure of my way as I walk out of the village and turn down a lane on my right. At the end of the lane is a farm, and the continuation of the lane is fenced off. But access is only denied to motor vehicles, and I continue down the grass lane, the brutish roar of cars and lorries from the nearby motorway getting ever louder with every step. The noise is almost unbearable when the lane emerges from the trees at the foot of a concrete footbridge which spirals up and over the motorway, then spirals down into the woods on the other side. The path through the woods emerges into farmland, and there in the distance, standing on top of a low hill is the object of today's ramble, an eighteenth-century red brick tower, or perhaps dovecote, known variously as Wilder's Folly or Nunhide Tower or Flint's Folly or Pincent's Kiln.

The public footpath follows the hedgerows across the fields, then joins a farm lane (which doubles as a public bridleway) that runs southwards through the farmyard. A little further on a path turns left up the gently sloping hill through newly-stubbled wheat towards the tower. The motorway is now but a dull murmur, although in a nearby field I can hear, and occasionally catch a glimpse of, a combine harvester gathering in the last of the wheat.

Photo taken from the information board south of the tower.After a prolonged dry spell the redness has been leached out of the bricks,and the grass of the path leading to the tower is the same colour as the straw in the adjacent fields.

The ground level has a vaulted ceiling and arched openings on three sides (north, south and west). All too predictably, the interior is graffiti-painted, and on the north and west sides are the remains of barbecues and scattered litter. The upper two stories would originally have been reached by an exterior wooden staircase, but that is long since gone. Sometime during the Victorian period the windows on the upper two floors were bricked up (all except for a small, round window above the hanging doorway on the east side), and the tower converted to a dovecote ("Pigeon Tower" is the prosaic name given on the information board). However, there do not appear to be any doves or pigeons here any longer, just a pair of red kites wheeling lazily high above (just out of reach of my camera). From the flat roof with crenellated parapet there would have been a fine view of the countryside, but Google Maps shows that the roof is no longer, and a tree or bush is growing out from the floor below.

The story goes that the tower was built as a folly in about 1769 by Henry Wilder, later rector of St Nicholas' Church in Sulham, when he was courting Joan Thoyts (who he married on 13 June 1769). Henry lived at Sulham House, one mile north of the tower, and Joan lived at Sulhamstead House, two miles southwest of the tower, and the tower was supposedly built on the strategic hilltop so that it could be seen from both their homes, and the lovers' hearts would be joined together through the mutual sight of the tower. I imagine that the tower was also designed so that Henry could climb up to the top of the tower and gaze longingly towards his sweetheart, maybe even so that he could signal to her at appointed times.

I choose my words carefully, because a Google Books search finds no evidence for the origins of the tower, or even that Henry Wilder was responsible for it, and the only source for the story appears to be the information board set up near the tower by the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. It may perhaps be based on Wilder family tradition, as Henry and Joan's descendants still live hereabouts. Nevertheless, I see no reason to doubt the romantic story, especially as it is too grand a structure to have been built originally for doves, and why would doves need to live on top of a hill anyway? The alignment of the tower also lends some credence to the story, for although it is roughly aligned on a north-south axis, the alignment is not perfect, and in fact if you look through the two arches from the south side of the tower you can clearly see Sulham House, where Henry Wilder dwelt, positioned in the exact centre. That the tower faces the Wilder's family home can be no accident.

According to the Folly Fellowship the first floor was originally painted inside,and the windows glazed, but I wonder how they know.

I go down the hill to rejoin the farm lane, and ten minutes later come out onto a road leading to the gigantic edge-of-town supermarket. Another concrete footpath over the motorway, this one much more travelled than the previous one, and I am soon back where I started. Maybe tomorrow I will go further.